Legacy Media Misrepresents Results Of New Study On Child Sex Change Treatments | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Christina Buttons.

    Left-leaning media outlets misled their readers when they touted a new study that purported to show mental health benefits of child sex change treatments, according to one of the first journalists to cover the subject.

    The study, published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed data collected between 2016-2019 from four prominent pediatric gender clinics and found that depression only lessened for females after taking testosterone, which has known antidepressant effects; the males in the study, who were conversely given estrogen which does not have antidepressant properties, saw no improvement to their well-being. Despite this, at least six news outlets lauded the new study as proof that "gender-affirming care" improves teens' mental health, without distinguishing between the profoundly different results of females from males.

    "Depression and anxiety symptoms decreased significantly, and life satisfaction increased significantly, among youth designated female at birth but not among those designated male at birth," the discussion section of the study pointed out.

    Media outlets, including The Washington Post, ABC News, STAT News, Popular Science, HealthDay, and The Eagle, as well as many individual posts on social media, have been accused of misrepresenting the results of the study by insinuating that the mental health of both sexes improved after cross-sex hormone treatment. Absent from the glowing coverage from media outlets are the two study participants who committed suicide and 11 who struggled with suicidal ideation.

    Jesse Singal, one of the first journalists to report on the rapid proliferation of trans-identification among teenage girls in 2018, called the media coverage of the study by leftwing outlets "irresponsible."

    "Journalists continue to botch this SO badly," said Singal, noting the lack of caveats, weaknesses, and missing context of different outcomes between the sexes.

    "Testosterone and estrogen are totally different chemicals, and [testosterone] is believed to have antidepressant effects," he added.

    Androgens, including testosterone, are the hormones that give men their secondary sex characteristics, such as facial hair, deeper voices, more upper-body strength, and other male-related traits developed during puberty. Testosterone is frequently prescribed to adolescent females who "identify" as transgender "boys" and has well-documented mood-boosting properties. According to a 2016 cross-sex hormonal treatment study of patients with gender dysphoria, androgens "can reduce mental distress, promoting feelings of euphoria and energy."

    Also missing from the study are confounding variables that may have contributed to females' improved well-being, including the impact of psychotropic medication like antidepressants and psychotherapy, which have been independently shown to improve mental health. Researchers have also posed a "placebo effect" hypothesis, in which the expectation of benefits from treatment has been shown to induce psychological improvement.

    Another concerning revelation is the study's opening line, which reports that "transgender and nonbinary youth comprise 2 to 9% of high-school-aged persons in the United States." The 9% figure comes from a 2021 analysis of more than 3,000 surveys on trans-identification in urban school environments.

    The study was funded by a research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that seeks to examine the impact of early medical treatment on trans-identified youth. Participants were recruited from well-known pediatric gender clinics, including the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, Boston Children's Hospital, and Children's Hospital Los Angeles from July 2016 through June 2019 for the Trans Youth Care-United States (TYCUS) Study.

    Short-term follow-ups, like this two-year study, by design, are unable to capture long-term feelings about medical transition. Even the Dutch studies, often hailed as the "gold standard" of evidence supporting medically transitioning trans-identified children, were found to be extremely deficient, according to a new analysis.

    Claims from past studies about the clear mental health benefits of "gender affirming" medical treatments for trans-identifying youth are often exaggerated and misleading. Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, found that claims of causality frequently cited by news outlets are not supported by evidence and that some of the studies commonly touted as demonstrating positive mental health outcomes show no or possibly even negative association between hormones and mental health.

poll#169

Considering how abjectly corrupt and civilly abusive the Left has become regarding the corrosive effect of their elected leaders; their entrenched and ruling bureaucracy; employing their failed Education Industry as Indoctrinators; their collusive private sector operators, such as the terminally discredited Legacy Media and Big Tech censorship of Free Speech: What will be the best course forward for hardworking Middle Americans, including the Patriot Class?

  Withdraw from society, go underground and plan for a resurgence when it is feasible to do so.

  Work within the confines of better policy by the People's government, once good sense and sanity is restored in the electorate at large, to achieve such.

  Are you a crazy, nut-job Insurrectionist? Everything is perfect within our plan to achieve our intended goals for the Socialist Left.

  Secession to form a true Constitutional Republic.

437 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#166

With the Midterm Elections less than one week away: What do you consider the top issues that you will be voting on to be corrected by your better representation?

  Education

  Crime

  Big Government getting Bigger

  Biden /Democrat controlled Spike in Energy Cost

  Inflation created by Legislation of Majority in Power

  Gender Reassignment

  Corrupted Bureaucratic /Service (DOJ, FBI, etc.) Institutions

  Abortion

  Discredited Legacy Media

  Ending the Corruption of Dishonest Politicians

  Corruptive Influence of Social Media

  Wide Open Southern Border

439 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?